George Poteet's Hot Rod Collection - George Poteet's World

"It's one of those places that you can't get to from here," explains Danny Burrow as he throws my luggage into the bed of his Nissan Frontier parked at Memphis International Airport. My flight didn't arrive from Detroit until after midnight, and it's pitch black as we speed south down Route 78. "You couldn't find it even if I told you where it was," Danny says as the small pickup passes over into northern Mississippi. "And the people who live around here have no idea-no idea-what George keeps there."

2/22George Poteet's first car was a '61 Ford Galaxie, and the '61 is still one of his favorite cars to drive. We stopped counting his '61 Fords when we ran out of fingers.

Danny guides the Nissan off Route 78 at an exit that spills out to a McDonald's and a Waffle House-like every other exit in the South. Then it's back under the highway, past a school, to a serpentine thread around some tract houses, and back across the highway on an overpass that exists for no real reason and apparently goes nowhere. From there it's just a turn past the county sheriff's house and a couple more incomprehensible switchbacks and we're at George Poteet's 1,000-acre car compound. I couldn't find my way back to it if I wanted to. I settle into the bunkhouse.

I've left the real world and entered George's reality. It's sort of like The Twilight Zone in that it's incredible, but there's no creepy terror and a lot more sheetmetal. And it's in Mississippi.

3/22The Poteet car compound spreads out over 1,000 acres, and there are '32 Fords squirreled away in almost every structure.

"I'm a car nut, man," George says with his Mississippi drawl almost before I've entered his relatively modest hilltop workshop the next morning. "I do anything. Hell, I've got a hundred cars sitting down here that have never been in any magazine."

George is a big guy with hands that swallow yours up as he shakes them. He's 62 and careful with his words. He's unpretentious but very smart, and it shows. In the shop there's a crimson '70 Mustang Mach 1 he'll eventually build for his 13-year-old grandson, a late-model Jeep Wrangler Unlimited he's just started prepping as a hunting vehicle, and a clean, ice-blue '61 Starliner that has a sweet rake and dog-dish hubcaps. Like a million other shops, the walls are covered in photos tracing the owner's automotive history. The difference is, George's history includes more cars than practically anyone else's. And many of those cars are iconic, high-profile hot rods.

Over the last 15 or so years, as far as anyone at HRM can tell, George has commissioned more cars from more top rod builders than any other individual-by a factor of maybe 20. George's patronage and backing have put shops like Troy Trepanier's Rad Rides by Troy on the map. And George's relentless enthusiasm has resulted in memorable machines such as the epic, Troy-built Sniper '54 Plymouth Savoy (HRM, Feb. '98); a '61 Ford Starliner out of Bobby Alloway's shop in Louisville, Tennessee, that's more delectable than 2 tons of black licorice; a '68 Dodge Charger from Steve Strope's Pure Vision that combines obsessive detailing with a NASCAR stance; and so many killer '32 Fords that we ought to stop calling them Fords and just call them Poteets.

4/22It's subtle stuff like this '62 Ford's rake and subdued wheels that make George's cars easy for casual and obsessed observers to appreciate.

Always a racer, George has run everything from his old Falcon at bracket drags in the '60s to the Poteet & Main Speed Demon streamliner at Bonneville last year. "One thing I'm not is a gold chainer," Poteet explains. "When I go to car shows, I go to look at cars. When I go to a race, I go to participate."

Obviously, he's got money now, but he wasn't born with it. He grew up in Mantachie, Mississippi, where even today there are only about 1,100 people. It's the sort of town where all the houses are modest and a few of them only recently brought all the plumbing indoors. It's the sort of town where everyone works hard because that's the only kind of work around.

"I never took a bath in my mother and daddy's house because they didn't have a bathroom," he says. "People think you're just rich. Well, yeah. But I was born in a house without electricity."

Poteet's Big Plans
Besides continuing his Bonneville adventure, George has at least 10 high-end hot rods under construction at shops around the country. "What I try and do when I build a car is not put anything that somebody can look at and say, 'I don't really like that,'" he explains. So the one thing all these cars will have in common is that they'll be tastefully done and feature hundreds of subtle tweaks that elevate them beyond mere cars. Here are a few of George's upcoming projects. Virtually all of them are due to be completed in the next year or so.

5/22<strong>'34 Ford Truck The Hot Rod Garage Denton,</strong><br /> Maryland
"I met George at the NSRA swap meet," explains Ray Bartlett of The Hot Rod Garage. "I had taken the truck there to sell it. He came over and said he'd buy it if I'd take it back and build it. 'Build it like its your own,' he told me, and 'I want something I can drive.'" The traditional '34 will feature a 327 for power backed by a five-speed manual transmission.

George probably would have stayed in Mantachie if back in 1969 a friend hadn't offered him a job collecting past due accounts at National Safety Associates in Memphis. He's been with the multilevel company ever since as part of the senior management team that has shepherded it through the development of fire alarms, water filtration systems, and today, the Juice Plus+ nutritional supplements. He's also the second largest shareholder in the company, just behind the founder.

6/22While Fords appear in greatest abundance in his collection, George has room for Chevys like this '62 409-powered bubbletop and a few select Mopars. He promises that someday the '69 Road Runner on the right will be "done his way."

And just because he has money doesn't mean he wastes it. "I've never borrowed a nickel to build a car," he asserts. "And it's all been done on a budget-whether it's a Ridler car or a '48 pickup. My family doesn't suffer any for it because I know on the front end what I'm going to spend on it." George's money is, ultimately, just money. It's what he's done with it that matters.

Scattered among four to seven buildings-depending on whether you count barns and sheds-George keeps about 120 cars-depending on whether you count classic tractors, trucks, and piles of parts-at his compound. Virtually all of them are American machines ranging from '32 Fords to a new Camaro SS and from bone stock to thoroughly twisted, and nearly all of them have the keys in the ignitions and are ready to drive. "I had a Ferrari and more than one Porsche," he says. "I have a Mercedes. I don't drive it. I don't call a Porsche and a Mercedes a car, though. They're 'automobiles.'"...

7/22<strong>'57 Chevrolet
Woody's Hot Rodz
Bright, Indiana</strong><br />
"It's a deceptively simple-looking car," explains Chris Sondles of the '57 Chevy that's going together for George at Woody's Hot Rodz. "But it's got a Morrison chassis and an aluminum 427. The idea was to take a '57 Black Widow and a modern NASCAR stock car and blend the two together. It's a race car we can take to shows.

George's machines aren't cars being cycled from collector to collector at ever-escalating prices until the last guy gets stuck when the market crashes. They're all drivers. And they're all neat cars, like 427 Galaxies, big-block Chevelles, and trucks riding on plush suspensions-lots of Fords, but a bit light in Mopars. George is in this for the long haul, and most of these cars will never leave his possession. Ever.

8/22...We call it the 1-inch car because we're adding an inch here and there and taking away an inch in other places. The thing about George is that he truly is a car guy. We talked about his car for 5 minutes and old-time drag racing for 45 minutes. He doesn't like a car with a lot of stuff-no A/C, no power windows, and a manual clutch. It truly is a hot rod." If Chris gets his way, after the '57 is done sometime in 2012, he hopes to put it on a NASCAR oval and lap at more than 180 mph.

You also won't find a lot of trophies. He's won his share of car show awards-and he wouldn't enter if he didn't want to win-but the trophies don't interest him. "I generally don't stay for any trophy presentations. I don't care about a trophy anymore. I let whoever built the car keep them."

What he displays now, and prominently in his showcase building, are his Bonneville records. "These are really the only trophies I keep," he says, pointing out his certificates from the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA). "I never did win an NHRA event at a national track. These are like a Wally to me. They're mine. It takes some money, and it takes a lot of talent. But it also takes balls to get in the car."

9/22The good thing about older customs is that if you wait long enough, they'll come back into style. This car is still waiting.

Despite all his Poteet-inized street machines and show cars, the machine he's become most associated with is Blowfish-a '69 Plymouth Barracuda built at Hot Rods by Troy. So far it's gone 303 mph (according to George's website) and holds the C/BFCC record at 291.844 mph. By the time this story hits print, he hopes to have gone 310 mph and set a record during '10 Speed Week. His other fast LSR car is the Speed Demon streamliner, with a goal of 450 mph, maybe even 500. It's already run 436 mph.

"I set a goal of 68 to 70 when I started this," George says with a sigh, contemplating the end of his Bonneville campaign. "If things all work out, by the time I'm 65, it'll be over and somebody else will drive. I can't see going more than 500 out there with an internal combustion engine. We sweat every year whether we're going to have enough salt to do it. And I've got another three to five years."

At day's end, I head back to the bunkhouse and George cruises off to a small car show in Tupelo driving one of his '61 Fords. He'll blend right in to that small pond. Most of the people there will never suspect what a big fish he is. George has the wherewithal to do what so many of us dream about. And he does so with a generosity a lot of us, frankly, couldn't muster. We're lucky to have him in our world. Or is that we're all lucky to be in his world?

13/22<strong>'61 Ford Ranch Wagon<br />
Craig Cooley<br />
Byers, Colorado<br /></strong>
George has a soft spot for '61 Fords, since that was his first car. And there's no rarer '61 body style than the two-door Ranch Wagon. "We found this one in Connecticut," Craig Cooley reveals. "Maybe we should have kept looking. The original frame was so rusty, I threw it out. About all we saved were the doors and sheetmetal from the beltline up." Built for dependability, the Ranch Wagon is being put together at Craig's one-man shop with a relatively stock chassis, a 410 Mercury V-8, and a C6 automatic transmission. "George is a wonderful guy to deal with. He treats us like family."

Poteet's HOT ROD Magazine Features
Few car owners have received the amount of magazine coverage as George Poteet. Below are some of the highlights of his more famous cars that have made the pages of HOT ROD. Many of his cars have also appeared in Street Rodder, Rod & Custom, and more.